


Anniversary

by Keldae



Series: Interludes [4]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Traitor Arc, post-copero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 11:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16891410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keldae/pseuds/Keldae





	Anniversary

It was early spring on Odessen. Birdsong carried on the breeze, accompanied by the scent of the trees surrounding the Alliance base. Sunlight streamed through the clouds, warm and comforting to most.

The redhaired woman sitting on a window ledge didn’t feel it. No matter that her little ledge was open to the sunlight and the elements, or that the breeze earned an involuntary shiver – she felt nothing. She wandered through her own mind, lost in her thoughts, her gaze unseeingly fixed on the small circle of gold she kept twisting on her finger, over and over again.

She either didn’t notice the two men watching her from a safe distance or didn’t care to acknowledge them. One of the men, a tall blond-haired spacer, sighed when he sensed the emotions leaking out from her mental shields. “Yeah, no, it’s a rough day. She’s probably not gonna respond to anything.”

The other man, dark of skin and hair, frowned worriedly and crossed his arms. “She’s only been having rough days since he left. Has she eaten anything today?”

“I dunno. Probably not.” The blond glanced over at his companion. “It’s their anniversary today, Koth…”

Koth swore under his breath. “No wonder she’s so out of it, then. It was only their first, wasn’t it?”

Beside him, Korin nodded. The pranking, jovial spacer was unusually sombre, had been since he’d returned from Umbara without his best friend. “And with their son hidden somewhere that ain’t here, she’s a wreck.”

Koth winced. “Poor thing. Is she talking to anyone?”

“Not even Tee-Seven, and you know it’s bad when she won’t talk to Tee-Seven. Senya an’ Lana both tried earlier, but…” Korin sighed. “She wouldn’t even talk to Dad earlier when he tried to get her to eat something.”

“Anything we can maybe do? At all?”

Korin’s lips pressed together in a thin line as he worriedly looked at his sister. Not for the first time, he was tempted to confide the actual plan to her, reassure her that her husband was trying to save her, not kill her… anything to bring the life back to her eyes, or a smile to her face. But until he and Theron and Lana found the real traitor in the base, they couldn’t risk it yet, and that was eating him alive. He glanced over at Koth and shook his head. “Not unless we can find Theron and drag his sorry hide back here, or make it safe for Daenril to come home. They’re the only two Xaja wants.”

Koth grunted in frustrated acknowledgement, and the two pilots turned back to their worried vigil over the Alliance Commander.

* * *

She could feel the weight of her brother and friend’s worried looks. She was grieving, not blind. But she couldn’t look up and acknowledge them. That required strength she didn’t have. All she wanted to do was curl up in some dark corner and hide from the weight of the galaxy that she carried on her shoulders, hide until someone else could be the hero instead of her and make everything right again, without the grand kark-ups she’d caused since the Alliance was formed.

Not for the first time, she thought back through all of her previous choices and tried to find out what had gone wrong. Why had the galaxy revolted against the Alliance like this? Was it her leadership? Had she and Sorand, who’d all but taken over the Commander’s duties in the face of the uprisings while she’d been pregnant, somehow karked something up? Had this been laying in wait under the surface, waiting for Vaylin and Valkorion’s demises before rearing its head to strike? Was it something she’d done during the rebellion, or during the Iokath disaster that had nearly killed her?

Whatever it was, Xaja couldn’t see a way to fix it, and that broke her heart. She wanted Theron back to get answers from him for what he’d done to her – her father was still convinced the younger spy was acting on her behalf, but Xaja was too afraid to trust that hope. She wanted her baby back with her, safe and sound – but until they found the answers for Theron’s idiocy, found out more about this mysterious Order of Zildrog, Odessen wasn’t safe for her little boy. Daenril was safest with Satele Shan, and that upset Xaja even more – not that her mother-in-law was raising her son, no. She trusted Master Satele, had trusted her ever since she was a Padawan. But she couldn’t keep her own son safe, another blow to her pride as the Alliance Commander, to her own sense of self-worth as a mother and a Jedi.

She sighed and pulled back from the window ledge, turning inward to her temporary quarters. Her father had ordered her moved to a different billet in the base, one Theron wouldn’t expect her to be in should he return to finish what he started on Umbara. This room was smaller, but secure, and well-protected. The sunlight from the window should have warmed the cold shards left in her heart… but nothing could touch that now, or so she felt.

Her feet carried her toward the storage cabinet in the room, and she dropped to her knees as she opened the door. There, crumpled in the bottom of the wardrobe, was a pile of red and black leatheris. Some days, she couldn’t look at it without shoving it further away and weeping… other days, like today, she grabbed the wrinkled jacket and held it against her chest like it was a lifeline. She could still pick up traces of Theron’s scent on the garment, the scent all at once breaking her heart again and making her feel almost safe and whole. She slipped the jacket on over her thin shoulders, all but drowning in the oversized coat. When she sat down on the bed and closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she was wrapped in Theron’s arms, safe and warm and protected from the monsters that she couldn’t banish from her own mind…

Her jaw clenched in pained grief as she laid down, pulling Theron’s jacket tighter around her skinny frame and tears trickling out from her closed eyes. One year ago, they’d stood on a beach together and slid rings onto each other’s fingers while vowing to love each other forever… now she felt alone and abandoned.  _Why like this, Theron?_  she silently cried as she pressed her wedding ring against her lips.  _Why after you said you loved me?_

* * *

Theron was pretty sure that the only two dates to hurt him more than his wedding anniversary were either his wife’s birthday, or his son’s. But he had a goal to bring down the Order of Zildrog before Daenril turned one, or at least make sure Xaja had the information she needed to take down the Order herself. His son was not going to grow up in a galaxy of fear, not if he could help it.

But damn, he wished he was able to make the galaxy safe in a way that didn’t hurt the woman he loved.

It wasn’t enough for him to have the memory of her wide eyes, the expression that looked like she’d just been shot in the chest, the choked sound of tears in her voice as he left her on the cursed train. Then he’d been an idiot and asked Korin and Lana for updates on her. Lana’s messages had been mercifully brief, summarizing the Jedi’s plans and schemes to hunt him down, and scarce on details as to how Xaja actually was doing.

Korin’s made him hurt whenever he read them.  _She’s not eating. I don’t think she’s sleeping. She’s so pale she’s practically translucent. Dad’s worried about her. She hasn’t smiled since Umbara happened. She nearly fainted during morning briefing. We’re all worried. She DID faint during morning briefing today. Finish your op and get out of there. You need to come back soon. Yesterday would be good._

Theron set the shuttle into night-cycle and laid down on his narrow bunk. In the darkness, his deft fingers sought out the secret compartment in the wall, not big enough to hold more than a datastick, or a few credits… or a wedding ring, hidden away where the Order couldn’t see it. It belonged on his finger, not in a small, dusty compartment… and he belonged on Odessen, curled up in a larger bed with the woman who wore the matching ring to his own. Did Xaja still even wear the ring he’d given her, or had she thrown it away, tossed on a powerful Force-throw into the forest? He couldn't blame her if she had done that.

He closed his fist around the ring and pressed it against his mouth, willing himself to not give a voice to his sorrow and his grief. It hurt, it hurt so badly, but if it kept his wife and son safe, it was worth it… right? His eyes drifted shut as he let his mind wander. Inevitably, his thoughts turned toward his wife and son – one of them on Odessen, trying to pull herself together to lead a ragtag Alliance… the other one having vanished off the face of the galaxy, and not even Lana and Korin knew where Daenril was. Wherever the baby was, Xaja had authorized it, and that was Theron’s only consolation. And if he couldn’t find Daenril, the Order couldn’t either…

Red hair and green eyes, brimming with tears, filled Theron’s thoughts. He embraced the pain anyway to see this vision of her, like he desperately wished he could embrace her.  _Xaja…_

* * *

Haunted hazel eyes filled Xaja’s mental vision for a moment, and grief not her own clenched her heart. She froze, letting the tears trickle unheeded over her pale face. That nudge against her mind, warm and solid as it was… it was familiar. It felt like…  _no, it can’t be._ But who else could have taken over his side of the faint, strained bond they had shared?

She hesitated, then reached back along that narrow thread of the Force, seeking the presence she’d known as well as her own on the other end. For long moments, she felt nothing, and feared that she’d imagined that warm, reassuring presence –

No. That was him, the glimmer of light and warmth that she just brushed up against. Desperately, Xaja reached out before Theron’s presence could vanish again.  _Theron…_

* * *

He felt that tug against his mind. His eyes flashed open in shock as the feeling of Xaja (all at once fire and sunshine and sweetness and the refreshing coolness of a new rain) brushed against him, a feeling that he would never have been able to mistake for anyone else.  _How… she shouldn’t be near enough to feel me. Odessen is several sectors away!_  And he thought that he had blocked off his end of their bond.

A good spy would have shoved her away, closed himself off and prevented her from feeling him again. For long seconds, Theron wavered, knowing what the mission required him to do. But this feeling of warmth was comforting to him… and then he felt agony that was not his, agony and despair and a grief so sharp, it may as well have been a knife twisting in his chest.

Korin’s terse messages came back to Theron’s mind, and he set his jaw grimly. No matter if he destroyed every single person with ill intent before they could get to Xaja, it meant nothing if she gave up and succumbed to her grief. Theron knew too well how fatal hopelessness could be. He closed his eyes again and strained, reaching back to her as best as he could with his lack of connection to the Force, found her distant presence and clung to her.

* * *

He reached back for her. He didn’t shut her out again. Xaja clung right back to him, his warmth mingling with the scent of his jacket around her, making her feel like he was laying beside her instead of somewhere on the other side of the bloody galaxy. She squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on what she could sense from him.

His mental blocks felt like they were down. Xaja could feel immense sadness from him, and guilt ( _good_ , she bitterly thought), and regret, and worry, and through it all a thread of determination. Whatever idiotic idea he had in mind, he was going to see it through.

Her own emotions came racing along the bond before she could attempt to corral them. Pain, heartbreak, grief, fear, anger… She opened up her shielding, letting him feel what he’d done to her. They were far too distant to exchange words, but she could still pass on what she felt.

The guilt and sorrow she felt from him resurged, and a wave of some deep emotion she didn’t have a name for rushed over her, making her feel almost like drowning. Was that… apology? Regret? She tucked it away to analyze later and let her grief rise up again. If she could pass one word to him…  _Why?_  she screamed into the Force.

The sudden feeling of fierce protectiveness stole her breath away. She knew that feeling… she’d sensed it every time Theron had guarded her back in a fight, or stood guard over her as she’d fought her way back to consciousness, or come tearing through a pack of faceless enemies to help her.  _Theron’s… protecting me? From what?_

Then she felt a surge of something familiar, and despite her trying to shy away from it, it all but drowned her.  _Love, love, love._  Theron had never stopped loving her, if what his emotions indicated was true. That was the emotion she remembered feeling from him a year ago as he’d kissed her after making his vows to her… as he’d held their newborn son in wonder… as she’d felt from him before they’d taken off for Umbara. That was too deep a feeling to be faked. Protection and love…

* * *

He’d confused her and he knew it. Theron winced when he realized just how deeply Xaja must have believed the lie he’d told her, the lie that he wanted to destroy her and the Alliance. As she silently absorbed the feeling of love he’d pushed her way, the spy focused. Holding onto the bond for this long was giving him a headache, but he wasn’t about to drop this fragile connection he had with Xaja. He took a deep breath, letting himself feel hope for the first time in too long. Hope that they were going to win against the Order, hope that he would be able to eventually come home to her, hope that his family was going to survive intact.

Finally,  _finally,_  he felt a crack in her despair, felt the slimmest glimmer of her own hope. Joy rushed through him powerfully enough to take his breath away… then he finally felt love that wasn’t his own. Xaja reached back for him, with the same love that Theron remembered so clearly from their nights together before the Order had torn them apart. He smiled despite the tears dampening his cheeks as their bond seemed to strengthen, love flowing between them despite the distance separating them.

And for a moment, he could have sworn that he felt Xaja lying beside him, her warm breath on his cool skin. He didn’t dare open his eyes and break the spell, not when he could envision the feeling of her cold hands against his so vividly, breathe in her scent, and pretend that all was as it was supposed to be. In his mind’s eye, he suddenly saw a room on Odessen, and Xaja curled up in front of him, all burrowed up into his old red jacket, a new scar on her cheek that he realized must have come from leaping away from the crashing train, tear tracks on her too-pale face… but a smile on her lips.

Theron’s grasp on the bond finally slipped, and he felt himself drifting back into himself despite his best frantic efforts to cling to Xaja.  _I love you,_  he whispered across the expanse, and prayed that she heard it as his eyes finally opened. His pillow was damp from the tears he’d unconsciously shed while in the trance, and his hand was cramping from how tightly he held on to his wedding ring, but his heart was the lightest it had been since the day he’d abandoned her on Umbara.

* * *

Xaja slowly sat up, pulling Theron’s jacket tighter around her. She felt disoriented after holding onto her bond with her husband for so long… but she’d somehow heard his whisper, and knew his words were true. Whatever stupid thing Theron was doing, he still loved her… and she still loved him. The feeling of him laying beside her, all warmth and protectiveness and security, still lingered; she passed her hand over his side of the bed, and was almost surprised to realize it was cold.

Hope settled into her chest, feeling almost uncomfortably light and easy. She hadn’t realized how used she’d grown to the despair that had settled in after the train exploded. Warmth flowed through her, a welcome change from the crippling cold that had plagued her since she escaped the train. For once, it didn’t hurt to breathe, or move, and she almost felt like she could maybe try a smile.

She slipped her wedding ring back onto her finger and stood up, brushing away the last of her tears with the jacket sleeve. The Alliance still needed her… Daenril needed her… Theron needed her. The will to live and fight bloomed in her chest again as she nodded to herself. Curling up and drowning in despair wasn’t going to help anyone, or bring Theron back to her where he belonged. She had an Alliance to lead and an Order to take down.

And somewhere in the galaxy, she had a husband to bring home.


End file.
